Industry Executives Positive on Mother’s Day Sales

Top floral industry executives say preliminary sales results indicate a strong Mother’s Day, but a trend toward late orders could prove problematic for florists down the road.

 “Based on more than a dozen conversations and e-mails exchanged with retailers, wholesalers and growers, it looks like the industry was up overall, between 4 and 6 percent, over last year,” says Peter Moran, SAF’s CEO and executive vice president. “And that’s after a good Mother’s Day last year, so that’s good news for the industry.”

“Florists indicated they had a good holiday,” says Mark Nance, AAF, president of BloomNet, 1-800-Flowers.com’s order fulfillment arm. Nance predicts member florists will see an increase in sales over last year. “It was better than they expected,” he says. “The weather was perfect.”

That’s a sentiment Rod Crittenden, executive vice president of the Michigan Floral  Association, shares. He partly attributes area florists’ “strong” holiday to sunny skies –- a welcome reprieve from the long Michigan winter. “The best part was the weather,” he says. “People came out and bought.”

Tom Butler, AAF, chairman of Teleflora, also reported strong sales, calling Mother’s Day 2007 “a tremendous holiday.” Ann Quinn, executive director of the California State Floral Association,  agrees:  “I talked to a couple of florists on Saturday –- they were extremely busy. It sounded like it was a great holiday.”

Still, Nance and Butler both say this year they noticed a  trend that could make holiday planning harder on florists in the coming years: orders coming in late, at least partly because consumers have become accustomed to online ordering. 

“The holiday is just breaking later,” Butler says. “The challenge for the florist is having to do more in a shorter period of time... [With the Internet], consumers can wait and order late.” 

“It really started hitting late into Thursday, Friday, even Saturday morning,” Nance says. “It’s almost like we are teaching our consumers that they can wait until the last minute.”

Late orders were not a trend Peter Plumley, president of Blossoms Network Floral Services, noticed. In fact, Plumley says the company got “thousands of orders prior to the last week of April,” and believes consumers are ordering earlier partly due to florists’ promotions and marketing campaigns.

At press time, FTD had no comment on FTD.com or member florists’ Mother’s Day sales.

SAF fields media inquiries

As the voice of the floral industry, SAF fielded inquiries from reporters and provided holiday statistics and gift-giving advice on www.aboutflowers.com for the media and consumers. In addition, SAF responded to nearly 20 instances of harmful publicity over the holiday, including negative comments by these companies:

• CNET's e-newsletter: "Tech for Mom: Forget the flowers, get her a gadget."
• Durango Steakhouse e-mail promotion: "Flowers would be nice, but they don't taste nearly as good."
• Express (Limited Brands, Inc.) in-store signs: "Because Flowers Are Overrated."
• Live365.com e-mail: "Carnations will wither quickly."
• San Francisco 49ers email: "Season Tickets: Because Flowers Last A Week ... Tickets Last All Season."

How did your Mother’s Day sales turn out? E-Brief editors want to hear your stories. E-mail vmachir@safnow.org.

-- Vanessa Machir
vmachir@safnow.org

 
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Higher Gas Prices Spur Media Coverage

The media's coverage of Mother's Day last week included one pronounced sub-theme: High gas prices are a headache for local florists -- but many have found ways to work around the cost increases.

"Gas prices really hurt us because our delivery costs have gone through the roof," Eva Oswald, the owner of Garden of Eva in St. Paul, Minn., told the Pioneer Press. She also told the newspaper about her efforts to reduce costs, including a $5,000 investment in FTD's Mercury Advantage to improve delivery routing and her participation in a local delivery pool.

"Customers understand," says Oswald, who recently increased her $7 delivery fee by 50 cents. "They're facing the same situation themselves."

According to Kiplinger's magazine, the average U.S. household is spending $1,000 more a year on gasoline than it did five years ago, and, with some prices in major metro areas such as Chicago and San Francisco reaching $3.50 a gallon or more at the pump, higher prices are expected across the country this summer.

When the daily newspaper The Oklahoman interviewed Larry Cheever of Cheever's Flowers and Gifts in Oklahoma City, he explained the shop's long-standing use of a 22-member delivery pool, Metro Oklahoma City Florist Delivery, as a cost-cutting measure.
 
"Instead of driving all over Oklahoma City, we just deliver in our zone," he said, explaining that florists who are part of the pool decrease their drives from 100 miles a day to 18 to 20 miles.

David and Pam Johnson, co-owners of Watson's Flowers in Mesa, Ariz., also generated positive publicity last week when the Arizona Republic profiled the shop's decision nearly two years ago to lease two fuel-efficient Scion xBs instead of relying on Ford Econoline vans.

"The gas savings alone, not counting the lower monthly lease and insurance payments, are paying for one of the Scions," David said.

Framing your shop's position in a positive light, regardless of the situation, is a sound strategy, says Jennifer Sparks, SAF's vice president of marketing.
 
 "Think of it from the perspective of the consumer," she says. "If you read an article that quoted two restaurant owners, and one talked about how they were doing their best to overcome a challenge with the goal of best serving their customers, and the other just complained about how it was hurting their business, where would you go to dinner?"

SAF members have access to information on how to interview like a pro and work with reporters through the Marketing Tips and Tools page on SAF's member Web site.

-- Mary Westbrook
mwestbrook@safnow.org

 
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Industry ‘Hero’ Dies

John G. Seeley, Ph.D., AAF, the namesake of the annual Seeley Conference industry “think tank” and a much respected member of the U.S. floral and horticultural community, died May 9. He was 92.

John G. Seeley, Ph.D., AAF, passed away last week. He was attending the 2000 Seeley Conference when this photo was taken.

Seeley, inducted into SAF’s Floriculture Hall of Fame in 1979, was a pivotal figure in floriculture’s academic world. He earned a bachelor’s and a master’s degree from Rutgers University before obtaining his doctorate from Cornell University in 1948. His teaching, research and extension work ranged from research assistant at Rutgers to associate professor and chair of Floriculture at Penn State, and head of the Department of Floriculture and Ornamental Horticulture at Cornell. Seeley was the author of several scientific bulletins and many technical and scientific articles for florist trade papers and magazines. 

“John Seeley was a hero to me,” says Marc Cathey, Ph.D., a member of SAF’s Hall of Fame, and past president and president emeritus of the American Horticulture Society. “He was always fighting for the long story and the major contributions. He did everything, and he did it well.”

In a story about Seeley published in the Ithaca Journal, students and colleagues fondly remembered his “perfectionist” tendencies, explaining to the newspaper that Seeley often “spent more time reading and critiquing a paper than the student had spent writing it.”

For several years, Seeley was the secretary to the International Horticulture Society, and in 1986, he was elected president of the American Horticulture Society. Since 1986, Seeley has been honored by the "Seeley Conference" at Cornell University, an annual gathering where industry leaders meet to discuss and debate critical issues facing the floral industry. In 1998, he was awarded the Liberty Hyde Bailey Award, the highest honor of American Horticulture Society. Even in retirement, he was active in floriculture, serving as president of the Fred C. Gloeckner Foundation, which makes small grants to floriculture researchers.

-- Mary Westbrook
mwestbrook@safnow.org

 
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Florist Speaks at Senate Ladies Club

A florist in Hurst, Texas, is telling a powerful group of local consumers that flowers and plants can calm you down, make you happy, and even lower your blood pressure -- depending on the color of their blooms.

Carol Bice, AAF, AIFD, of Bice's Florist in Hurst, Texas shared helpful advice during a presentation called "Chromotherapy and the Healing Power of Colors and Flowers," given on Feb. 21 for the Texas Senate Ladies Club, a social organization made up of current and former Texas senators' wives.  The event was held in Austin at the Chateau Bellevue, home of the Austin Women's Club. About 32 members of the club attended the presentation -- after which attendees were encouraged to make vase arrangements with flowers donated by Southern Floral in Austin.

The Texas State Florists' Association (TSFA) organized the presentation. "Some of the wives have been interested in the floral industry ... and trends and color," says Dianna Doss, AAF, executive director of TSFA. "They contact us about once every other year [for a presentation]. We chose Bice because she is a presenter who is well respected within the industry and has studied chromotherapy." Chromotherapy is the study of how colors and light can be used to heal and balance energy within the human body.

During her presentation, Bice, who started studying chromotherapy about two years ago, cited evidence that humans react physically, as well as emotionally, to different colors.  Research has demonstrated, for example, that a blindfolded person will have varying physiological reactions when placed under different color light rays.

To help explain how colors can affect moods and reactions, Bice also used "a lot of information from SAF -- it all just goes together."

Bice says her presentation received a positive reception. "It's just overwhelming to people how colors can show your personality," she says.

Doss, who attended the presentation, agrees: "Immediately following the presentation, the audience expressed their gratitude -- they didn't realize color was so prominent in their lives.

-- Vanessa Machir
vmachir@gmail.com

 
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Keep an Eye on Your Mailbox ... for Tools to Increase Local, Everyday Sales

SAF's 2007 local Marketing kit is heading your way! The kit includes a poster with the headline, "Special. Delivery." (left) to reinforce florists' delivery service and the emotional benefits of a floral gift. A second poster features the headline, "Daily Inspiration" (right) to capitalize on the Home Ecology of Flowers research.

 The kit also includes two customizable ads, two radio commercial scripts, promotional advice and ideas, and two new postcards and statement stuffers available for order. Digital materials also will be available on SAF's member Web site. SAF's 2007 Local Marketing Kit is a direct result of the SAF Fund for Nationwide Public Relations.

-- Jennifer Sparks
jsparks@safnow.org

 
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BloomNet Introduces Online Directory

"It's a good system -- it works well," says Karla Richards of the BloomNet Directory Online.

After more than 18 months in development, BloomNet, the order fulfillment arm of 1-800-Flowers.com, has launched an online directory which member florists can use to search for florists and to send orders. The new service replaces the company's previous paper directory and comes at a time when more florists are hooked up with broadband Internet and increasingly familiar with Web-based directories.

"Since florists treat wire-out orders as if they were their own, our florists asked us for alternative methods for sending orders that provided more relevant information about the receiving florist -- which would allow them to find the right florist, quickly, and with the added benefit of building reciprocation between fellow florists" says Lisa Carmichael of BloomNet.

Using the BloomNet Directory Online, participating florists can locate other florists using a variety of criteria, including geographic location and shop code. Florists' ads and listings provide the BloomNet Florist with details such as florists' qualifications and specialties, store hours, order minimums and inventoried products. The directory also gives BloomNet florists "peace of mind in knowing they're not sending orders blindly to just any florist," said Mark Nance, AAF, the company's president, via a press release. 

"It's easy enough [to use] that everyone at my shop picked it up" says Karla Richards of Edmond Flower Shop in Edmond, Okla. of the new directory. "It just makes you feel a bit more comfortable -- I like being able to read about the florists. I'm not just picking a name."

The BloomNet network currently includes 9,000 florists around the country, including about 15 company-owned stores and about 85 franchised stores, according to 1-800-Flowers.com's Web site.

-- Vanessa Machir
vmachir@safnow.org

 
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She Speaks, They Listen?

Wondering if your summer design specials are going to fly with consumers? Why not send out a few complimentary tests? A new Web site is doing just that.

At SheSpeaks.com, which launched in January, users –- all female -- sign up by filling out a questionnaire on their lifestyle. Within two weeks, they start to receive products to test. Products are theirs to keep (at no charge), but in exchange, users must provide feedback on the Web site. After the test is complete, manufacturers respond with information on how the SheSpeaks trial affected the product launch. (Why just women? In the United States, women are responsible for more than 80 percent of household purchases, making them an ideal test market.)

At least one group says this kind of test marketing has a real future: In its review of the site, Springwise called SheSpeaks.com an “efficient and effective” vehicle for product research. “It's a great way for [companies]  to connect directly with their intended markets,” Springwise editors contend. “Product testing and sampling combined with an online community: definitely a concept that easily could expand to other product categories, countries and demographics. As long as opinions aren't filtered or censored.”

-- Mary Westbrook
mwestbrook@safnow.org

 
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Antlers Take Over New York

Sleek zebra carpets may have been all the rage last year, but there’s a new interior decor trend in town and it’s a little -- well -- rustic.

“The raw concrete floors and white walls of 1990s minimalism have been swept away,” according to The New York Times. “In their place, new boutiques and cafes in the city's glossier neighborhoods resemble overdesigned hunting lodges -- dark and moody, with uneven floorboards to trip over and, almost inevitably, a set of antlers hanging from the rafters.”

Antlers? You bet. Across New York, antlers are staging a comeback (or, at least, an initial popularity surge) -- from antler-shaped pendants at super-chic boutiques such as Alex and Chloe to ornate antler chandeliers and lighting fixtures at Odin, a men’s store, and Chip and Pepper, a denim and T-shirt shop.

"It's an iconic indication of some sort of rural lifestyle, I guess," the designer Rogan Gregory, who briefly displayed antlers in his store on Franklin Street, said to the Times. "It's like, if a store has antlers on the walls, that somehow makes them legitimate."

For his part, Michael Skaff, AAF, AIFD, PFCI, of Michael J. Skaff Displays in Thompson, Conn., says he isn’t surprised by the new trend.

“Nature is being influenced in all aspects of design from interior to graphic,” says Skaff, who currently works for FTD.com on design and product development. “Many florists are revamping their shop to follow this trend, creating ‘conservatory-like’ environments with natural stone or terra cotta floors and merchandising their displays with wooden benches, earthenware pots and natural woven baskets."

And, don’t look for these new nature-loving themes to disappear anytime soon, Skaff says: “Florists should follow the trend and market themselves appropriately.”

-- Mary Westbrook
mwestbrook@safnow.org

 
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Product Spotlight: Custom Print Marketing Center

The Mother's Day rush is over, and now you need an effective marketing campaign to keep your customers coming back. Don't worry, SAF makes it easy with the Custom Print Marketing Center. Simply choose one of SAF's attractive postcard designs (you even have access to our out-of-print designs), customize it with your information, upload your mailing list and place your order. The process takes just minutes, and you don't have to lick a single stamp! For more information, visit the Custom Print Marketing Center Web site.

-- Vanessa Machir
vmachir@safnow.org

 
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Florists in the Media

About 52 percent of readers responding to last week's e-poll say their shop has been featured in a Mother's Day media item. Forty-eight percent say their shop has not.

-- Vanessa Machir
vmachir@safnow.org

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Spring Holidays Good to Florists

If florists have had spring fever for the last few years, it's no wonder. Recent Spring holidays have produced good sales returns, according to SAF survey results. In fact, as the graph below shows, more responding florists reported increases at Mother's Day, Secretaries Week and Easter/Passover than reported sales declines or no changes from the year before. This is particularly the case for Mother's Day 2005 and 2006, where between 60 percent and almost 70 percent of florists indicated increases in sales. About 45 percent of florists indicated increases for the past two Secretaries Weeks. Preliminary results for Easter/Passover 2007 show a more varied situation, with florists more or less evenly divided among increased, decreased or unchanged sales from 2006.

If you haven't responded to the online survey please do so today. It will be closing tomorrow as the 2007 Secretaries Week/Administrative Professionals Week survey is launched -- followed in a week by the 2007 Mother's Day survey. If you do not currently receive SAF surveys but would like to be included, contact Ira Silvergleit, isilvergleit@safnow.org

Florist Spring Holiday Sales Comparison

-- Ira Silvergleit
isilvergleit@safnow.org

 
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